Paintings of the Prophet
It started last year, September to be accurate. A danish newspaper published 12 illustrations depicting the Islamic prophet of Allah: Muhammed.
What might be reaching shores outside of Europe by now is the news of a middle-east almost unanimously boycotting Danish goods, burning the danish flag in the streets and calling home diplomats from my country. Terror threats towards Denmark have been posted on the web.
Why? Because according to the Quran – the Islamic bible – the prophet may not be depicted in any way.
So on one hand we have a secular newspaper in a country with freedom of the press. On the other hand we have nations of Muslims enraged by what would appear to be a clear violation of one of the rules of Islam.
Do we take sides?
No, there’s a grayscale, a golden middle-way.
Voltaire summed it up nicely:
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it
I am a fierce believer in freedom of speech, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this. But just like the publisher of these paintings of the prophet, I know that it’s possible to offend people by exercising this right—consciously or not. We all approach things from our own unique perspective, and what one writer meant doesn’t always translate to readers. As such, free speech is not directly compatible with “do not draw the prophet” and never will be since any drawing could depict the prophet if we said it did. This is the price of free speach and it’s a price worth paying.
This is not about Islam, or any religion for that matter, it is only about freedom of speech. I respect the right to pick your own religion. I have many Muslim friends whom I respect very much. There is nothing wrong with following Islam.
Today, a french, a norwegian and an icelandic newspaper voiced their support of the danish newspaper by publishing the very same pictures. As the icelandic editor reasoned for the re-publishing of the pictures, freedom of the press cannot be argued.
Your opinion is welcome.
- February '06 Installment: Meadow
- Paintings of the Prophet
- Silk Icons
- Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Public Preview
A friend of mine gave me this link: “We were brought up to hate – and we do”
I think the anti-semtism that is being discussed is a little bit different, in that it is direct assaults or threats on people. I have never seen any furore over satiric cartoons of jews, jewish leaders, og figures from the bible, of which there by the way have been plenty. As mentioned before, satire, cartoons, and satiric cartoons are overwhelmingly commonplace in European culture.
There cannot be a shadow of doubt, from people who live within the European culture, that assault or threats on muslims will be treated precisely as serious as if it were jews or if it were in fact anyone.
However, one of the main problems here as it seems, is that a large groups of muslims equate these cartoons to threats, violence, persecution. And for me it is a little bit difficult to see and understand why!?
umayr, and everybody else, please believe me when I say that I truly believe in miracle of Jesus – BUT that I can’t give a hoot about how anyone whereever they may be, could come up with a comic, satirical, or demeaning drawing of him. So I can see that apparently many muslims are badly hurt by these drawings, but I can’t really, no matter how much you ask me to see things from your side, understand or agree the slightest bit with the feelings behind it.
Instead I can see dictatorious and corrupt regimes continuing to fuel a hate for westerners, playing the population as a lame fiddle, so that they may continue their wrong-doing uninterrupted.
umayr, you mention a reaction several times, that people have the right to reaction and bla bla, though you seem to think it went over the top. But really, the only form of reaction that would have been appropriate was one that was non-violent, completely within the law, and ONLY DIRECTED TO THE RESPONSIBLE PARTY: JYLLANDS-POSTEN.
And this is what is totally cocobongers about all this, that the reaction has been directed towards the whole west, as if this is yet another advance in the western world’s war against all of muslims. No! It’s all in your head!
While the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq can be debated, and indeed they are widely debated (to say the least), it is not so simple as to say it’s the West against the Muslims. I can’t believe that it can take many brain cycles to realise that if the west really wanted to wage a war on all muslims, that it would be just a tiny tad easier, as Chris put it, to turn the whole Middle East in to a piece of glass.
And by the way, Bosnia, Croatia, and Macedonia, the wars and the crimes against humanity there were stopped by military intervention by Europe and America.
Peace takes two, and while the Israelis have committed a lot of wrong, so have the palestinians and the other parties who have chosen to be a part of this conflict, and I want to tell you straight out, that even if you just believe it is solely the fault and now the responsibility of the Israelis, then you are part of the problem of people dying and living lives without hope.
Could everybody just get of their asses, tune down their sensitivity, and start WORKING for a better world where we all live together!
First off, “cocobongers” is a great word.
Second, I think you hit the nail on the head regarding West/Islam relations. The idea that I sit up nights worrying about terrorists or Islam or how best to further ruin their day is ridiculous but the impression I get is that’s what Islam thinks I’m doing. I’m not.
I could give a hoot about Islam. That’s your religion? Good for you. Have fun with that. Am I nightly planning world domination? Um… no. My biggest concern in life right now is getting a new site design finished and keeping my girl happy. Allah and Mohammed are way down on my list of priorities.
And, Islam, if your response is that I should be thinking about you more and that’s the problem; you’re wrong. Maybe you should be thinking about me a little less and instead concentrating on what really is important for you.
A couple things you could focus on other than me:
Just a few things that from where I’m standing are far more important than some cartoons depicting the Prophet who, I’m guessing, would be ashamed by the way the Islamic peoples have fallen since their heyday as leaders in science so many centuries ago.
Source: Italian Quits Over Cartoons; 15 Die in Nigeria
Don’t forget that this isn’t about following the oh-so sacred/holy/blessed/superior Qur’an, it’s about being a general asshole about being insulted. General asshole for taking it quite badly and blaming the whole Western world. For burning buildings over a cartoon. For trying to impose your religion upon non-believers. Remember what the Book said, then. Those’ll be taken care of. I don’t believe that will happen, but since you’re a Muslim, Umayr, you should, so that should take care of it all.
And again, like Chris says, don’t blame the entire West for what one Danish newspaper did, ignoring their intentions and everything else.
(I haven’t read the Qur’an myself, but will when I get the time, if people keep killing other people because they apparently read that they had to in a very old book.)
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While the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq can be debated, and indeed they are widely debated (to say the least), it is not so simple as to say it?s the West against the Muslims. I can?t believe that it can take many brain cycles to realise that if the west really wanted to wage a war on all muslims, that it would be just a tiny tad easier, as Chris put it, to turn the whole Middle East in to a piece of glass.
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If it really were that easy, it would have been done so by now. And yes I am challenging the West’s military might and will to sacrifice it all only to dominate a region militarily which they already do politically. OIL!!!
Muslims as a general rule dont really fear death. That doesnt mean Muslims dont enjoy life. It means that we dont FEAR death. If it were to come to a point where its either the West or Muslims, rest assured it wont be as easy as it was in Afghanistan or Iraq.
IF the west can understand and respect that, then we can see some normalcy in this world where actions arent taken uninformed and in haste (like the danish newspaper) and the actions are interpreted as an all out attack on a civilization (like it was perceived in the Muslim world). Respect and understanding has to be both ways. I can understand and even respect to some extent the value of freedom of speech … the opposite cant be said of the West with regards to the severity of the reaction in the Muslim world.
Turn the ME into a piece of glass? Fucking LOL! If thats what you really believe you cant really respect the Middle East and Muslims on a whole. Without respect you CBA to understand the differences and avoid conflicts such as this one. A clash of civilizations is inevitable if even one party has this sort of a mindset.
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Knowingly or unknowingly the danish, norwegian and other newspapers insulted Muslims everywhere. While it may be ok in some religions to portray their god or prophet, it is not so in Islam. They should have researched that little bit and weighed in all the options.
Hiding behind the argument of freedom of speech is wrong. They should have owned up and apologized if they really felt bad about hurting Muslim sentiments.
If they dont … and it has been made abundantly clear with the way newspapers all over Europe have reprinted the offensive material, then they should tell each complainant to go F themselves and get on with their freedom of speech loving and carefree ways and not care about the political and economic sanctions and what not.
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Muslims have the right to protest what they deem to be an injustice to them. They CAN boycott products of a country if they think thats the only possible way to protest. And in most cases it is. e.g. in Pakistan we have a sham democracy backed by none other than the champion of democracy … the USA. The public have no way to influence the decisions of their government. If a whole society/country suffers due to this boycott, so be it. Its not like they cry a tear everytime an Israeli bulldozer razes the home of a grieving Palestinian family whose son/daughter just blew himself/herself to ensure that their land isnt forgotten in this modern world.
Diplomatic sanctions would do ok as well. It just means that the public wont go up against the government and the illegit government can save face.
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I am OK (like most moderate Muslims I imagine) with peaceful ways of demonstrating. I am OK with economic and diplomatic sanctions. I am OK with discussions such as this one. I am even OK with people making general statements about Islam based on what little they have seen on the boob tube and read in their newspapers cuz my faith isnt affected by them.
I am not OK with people gaining political mileage out of it. Most of all however … I am not OK with people getting killed in protests … Muslim or otherwise. The killing of Christians and burning of churches if done is WRONG and there is NO justification for it. The people perpetuating this violence should look at the history of the Islamic empire when the Islamic rulers provided safety to non-muslims in their domain to practice their religion freely.
Anders Rask
I think the anti-semtism that is being discussed is a little bit different, in that it is direct assaults or threats on people
Anti-semitism when practiced was usually aimed at the masses, to insult them .. there were propaganda on the newspaper, there were books published and what not. Now in the modern world it is taken as a direct assult or threat on people. Now look at the current situation logically, antisemitism hurt the jews in some way or the other, direct or indirect it is now outlawed. Everybody now understand anti-semitism clearly, im not quite sure that would’ve been the case a couple of decades back, but it is now. So now with 1.5 billion people showing that it has hurt them in some way and they find it offensive why cant it be accepted that maybe just maybe its not a retarded reaction, maybe it has hurt some core value of thiers. Maybe not outlaw it but atleast be civilized about it.
Yes i agree that instead of making it a public issue and distributing the cartoons all around the world and creating a demand for the cartoons, the local community should’ve taken the newspaper to a court and put there case. But i guess there were politics invovled with all of this. Personally believe it or not, i feel more pissed off on the people who took the cartoons all over to make a big issue out of them than rather just dealing with them in a court of law.
and i agree with your last line, the need is to start working togather rather than open new fronts, it requires sensitivities from both sides.
now Chris
again you are generalizing, no islam is not like that and not every muslim is like that. So kindly do not generalize with me vs them sorta points.
haha
You are pointing towards the sects fighting, this isnt a historical issue with islam this is actually quite new and quite new, as new as the cold war. The shi’a sects were backed by iran which was backed by KGB/russia at that time and the sunni factions were backed by saudia backed by CIA/USA, and mostly this type of voilence is used to destabalize governments or to infuse fear in the people. Makes them feel really unsafe if they are believers. And btw this all started with the afghanistans occupation by russia.
This is again generalization of an issue of most of the third world, yeah they are curropt but most of the third world countries are..
Again generalizing, Muslims do have governments they are content and happy with, and like all other countries of the world .. political struggles will continue for what they beleive is right or wrong, isnt really about islam or the way muslims work.
Again the extreemist factions , well most of them created for the afghan cold war and still used for destablization of governments, they have nothing to do with popular muslim belief.
Well middle east is rising, Qatar, UAE, jordon, even pakistan has some positives, indonesia is recovering from the tusnami, malaysia is doing pretty well, egypt i guess is progressing too , so yup they are still developing , but again that was a generic comment. I think you are confusing Africa with Muslim states.
Well this is part myth part reality and its rapidly changing all around the muslim world, take UAE for example take Qatar for example.. take the prime example of malaysia.. the popular view of all muslims is pretty much the same about civic and equal rights, what you mostly hear on the media is what makes good news .. the hardline conservatives.. and well the conservatives are losing this battle. Since islam does beelive in civic and equal rights.
There is a very nice program on BBC called Doha Debate, they had this question asked and well there were plenty of facts and figures going around and what came out was that now the governments unlike the previous were actually putting alot more into thier own economy rather then putting the money in the US or european economy.
I know her she’s really sweet :)
Anders Rask..
yup its sad, but do you see how these protests have turned into voilent deadly protests only around the beging of feburary. This isnt because muslims were pissed off just now, its because this political party called ‘jamat’e'islami got into this, and this is what they are good with. These folks are pretty much present all around globally and are very organized, this was the main islamic force that america had used against the russians in afghanistan. They mostly try and represent muslims all over the world and are seriously dangerous.
Rob Mientjes
if 1.5 billion muslims would’ve come out to setfire trust me plenty of stuff would be burning, so please dont generalize.. you fall into the same pit of generlizing.. these people burning down embassies or killing people have nothing to do with the cartoon or the protest they have thier own agendas and they persue it.
and rob if you do seriously want to read the Quran go for muhammad asad’s translation of it, since it is somewhat a more accurate translation of the arabic.
Sorry? First of all, I may seem to generalise but I mean it only to make the point, not to pull in all Muslims of the world. It’s merely to illustrate rather than insult or literally generalise.
Secondly, what do you mean by that last sentence? The people burning down embassies or killing other people have nothing to do with the cartoons? They are pursuing their own agendas? Their agendas consist of plans to burn an embassy or to kill a Christian? What is that about then, and why do they say it’s out of anger over the cartoons? Are they joking?
Is violence a trait, according to the Qur’an? Or is the Qur’an irrelevant here?
Rob Mientjes said:
Well quran is irrelevant really, Quran has nowhere promoted any sort of voilence.. if someone pastes you some verses from teh quran and tries to prove it , its wrong, since you need to read the whole book and know the history to actually understand what it is about..
To understand my last sentence, look at it from a different point of view. The people in muslim countries feel hurt and do want to voice thier protest. The political parties around mostly in opposition or the conservative right find this an ample time to pressurize the government. So they take out to the streets form a mob and burn down buildings public properties and embassies… now if they do successfully burn an embassy, dipolomatically the government is in a mess .. and when they do gather up a mob they do just that.. This pressure then makes the governments buckle under pressure. This is exactly what is happening…
On generalizing…
You’re missing my point, I think.
Islam is your religion. When these lunatics attack the West they claim a right backed by Islam and the people that practice Islam. What I’m saying, the problem is that I see way more Muslims chanting for my doom and damnation than I see chanting for my salvation. It has nothing to do with the media only focusing on the bad. If you’re thinking I get my news from FOX you’re off your rocker.
As far as generalizations about Muslim governments you’re right. From what I can see Jordan isn’t so bad. Turkey is mostly okey-dokey. And, sure, there may be some others. However, that doesn’t forgive Saudi Arabia and Iran.
The Saud family is an embarrassment. Why Arabs haven’t risen up and taken back their nation I will never understand. And, I believe Iran closed over 300 newspapers not long ago to stifle the very freedom of speech that we Westerners are so attached to.
Eureka. Here’s the thing, Westerners place a value on freedom of speech comensurate with the apparent value Muslims put on the Mohammed (PBUH) imagery. Immovable object vs. Unstoppable force.
While I will go with the idea that extremists are reading from a backwards version of the Quran the idea that they have nothing to do with popular Muslim belief is laughable. They might not affect your belief but they do affect my perception of that belief.
And, isn’t my perception of that belief part of the issue here?
They’re not losing fast enough.
Bottom line, the view of the average American on the street is this:
Those aren’t my opinions. Those are the opinions of the vast majority of Americans. The reason that’s the opinion of the vast majority of Americans is because the only Muslims we know are the family down the street that own that convenience store and Osama.
If you want that view to change then you, my friend, and more Muslims like you are going to have to stand up and introduce yourselves.
Chris there are two people i think you are mixing up here.. an umayr (thats me) and Umair..
Chris what you have pointed out is the problem, i guess on both sides. they have a generic preception of each other and its sticking. These preceptions cant be broken until a serious effort is done from both sides.
but preconcieved ideas have to be let go . . the americans see islam as a backward and terrorist threat.. and attack iraq and probably will attack iran too .. and in return in the muslim world it is seen as a misuse of power..
Anyway that aside, Saudia’s current king is quite progressive, has started up the process of change.. there have been plenty of new laws implemented.. and trust me i have personally seen the change in that country. There is a great possibility of an election being anounced in the next year or so..
But again all of this is irrelevant, if the americans or the europeans expect that all the people around the world will accept thier point of view and abandon thier own views , i think it might be a mistake.. there has to be a tolerant solution to all these issues.
And seriously enough , the current problems in the muslim world are created via the super powers around.. Osama was CIA .. so were most of the other issues around.. Iran was mostly backed by KGB… and after the cold war was over they just left em stranded causing problems for the world..
But my point being.. to make the change both sides will have to try.. it wont really be solved by terrorism or attacking countries..
oh btw let me introduce my self.. im Umayr Masud from Islamabad Pakistan, and im trying to understand the current problem of modrenity and islam.. :)
it is abad thing from those dainsh to say that it is a freedom of speach…
becaus no one accept that thing…
Well, that’s part of free speech: it’s not about accepting but about doing it regardless. Of course, people can not accept it, but that’s not a contradiction to free speech.
Rob…there is nothing in the world make this thing a freedom of speech..it is not agood to them: danesh..to drow . nothing in religion have fun
are you agree with me?
I dont blame us muslims for feeling angry…..we are angry because we know that prohet Muhammad has nothing to with terorism. its we muslims today who are doing wrong and not following the way of prophet muhammad peace be upon him. We wouldnt have minded if it was an ordinary muslim man dressed as a terrorist….we might have agreed…….BUT NO they had to take the piss out of the last messenger of Allah( which means god in arabic by the way) A prohet muslims love more than their lives!! we also would be mad if jesus peace be upon him was potrayed like that and even Moses peace be upon him.
It was wrong the way we acted to the situation……The prohet muhammad peace be upon him was also ridiculed at his time? what did he do? ignored them and carried on being kind.
thats the way we should have reacted…….
Sumaya,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts here. I do not disagree with what you have to say, and muslims have every right to be angry.